Don't go changing versions. If you have exchange 2003, restore exchange 2003. The last thing you want in a DR situation is to add unknowns and making version changes may cause all sorts of problems.
Moving forward having live DR is the ultimate goal and virtualisation makes it much easier. Hyper-V Replica in Server 2012 for example is a very easy way to have a complete replica of all your servers in a DR site. Things like offsite DC's, DFS replication etc are also great. If you are always thinking about redundancy in your system design then it makes life a lot easier if disaster should strike. Having experienced a very real DR situation where the entire data centre was destroyed there is a lot more to just the technical side of DR. Maybe someone else is already covering that but I personally found it to be the biggest challenge. Having to find office space, sufficient power, sufficient cooling, sufficient chairs and desks and of course computers (switches, routers etc!) for however many staff. Communication networks may be down. We had no data centre, so no email, no landlines and for a while no working mobile phone network. The Head Office was under water. With many offices around the country that suddenly had no idea what was happening and couldn't get in touch with people to find out either. What will you do if mobile networks are down? If email is offline how will you communicate what is happening to the business? Consider external communication sources. We used Facebook as nearly everyone has a Facebook account. So the sites that were on the other side of the country knew what was happening. I found Remote Desktop servers to be a real saviour. You can have staff work from home. That removes the need to find computers, office space etc as most people have a computer at home. Restoration can take a very long time, be prepared for that and make sure you have your system restoration order clearly defined. This business didn't have email high on the list. It quickly became number 2 on the list. Every disaster is different and you can never be prepared for all possible scenarios. James. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Miller [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 4 December 2012 11:57 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: DR planning Folks, Next week we are testing two disaster scenarios at a remote site (we pay the site and they provide servers only for restore/DR - no live hosting). We have Exchange 2003 here and a variety for 2008/2003 servers as DCs and member servers for file and print. Recommendations for recovery? This is just a simple test to see what we can do. Long-term I'm going to recommend live servers so I have put a DC and replicate files and Exchange 2010 there. For now I'll need to be able to restore some SQL databases for an enterprise system, Exchange 2003, and files for file and print. Since it's a test and I can't restore servers of the same name and such on a live network - we have an MPLS link to DR site - I was thinking of just building a few new servers, add a DC, and install SQL and restore databases. What about Exchange 2003? Is there a way I can restore the databases but only be able to manually pull mail from them? Or would it be better to just build a new Exchange 2003 server and add DR accounts to it. It has been a long time since I've worked with Exchange, so your thoughts are appreciated. Moving forward, what do you folks do for DR? I was thinking at the remote site (always live eventually): DC, SQL server with replicated databases (2012 AlwaysOn I guess), server for file and print using DFS to replicate critical files, another Exchange 2010 server in the current DAG, and a hub/client access server. Tom ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
